This invention concerns an electronic dictionary which provides, for words or compound words of one language that is, objective words in a saurce language), the equivalents in another language (a target language).
So-called electronic dictionaries have become commercially available. Such electronic dictionaries require key-input of, for example, an English word or compound word (herafter the term "word" will be used generically, so as to encompass a compound word and then display information in, for example, Japanese, The displayed information typically includes the equivalent word or compound word, meaning and pronunciation.
Such an electronic dictionary, however, requires an alphabetical keyboard to enter a word of the source language, which is liable to entail errors due to incorrect operation of the keyboard or misreading of the word, particularly if the operator operates the keyboard and reads the source document alternately. Each time an input error is made, the word must be reentered. Thus, entering a word correctly takes a significant amount of time, which, in some cases, is longer than the time necessary for consulting an ordinary dictionary. Thus, the conventional electronic dictionaries have been far from being practical, and they have not been able to exhibit the full advantages of the electronic dictionary.
The assignee of the present application proposed an electronic dictionary in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 07/135,525, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,890,230.
This electronic dictionary is provided with optical character reading means for entering a word of a source language, namely, an objective word. In entering the objective word, the optical character reading means is applied to the first character of the objective word, and then moved along the objective word by hand to read the word. Characters of the objective word are coverted into corresponding electric signals, the characters are identified one at a time, and the objective word is identified by the arrangement of the characters. The objective word and the equivalents in the target language are displayed simultaneously on a display.
This electronic dictionary facilitated the entry of an objective word considerably and reduced the possibility of misreading. Nevertheless, it sometimes happened that the objective word could not be identified or that the objective word was incorrectly identified due to the meandering scanning movement of the optical character reading means or irregular scanning speed. When the objective word cannot be identified is identified erroneously, the optical character reading means must be operated again for scanning. Thus, even this electronic dictionary is not completely free from troublesome operation.